Pastor's Reflection - 1/11/18

It was a rather strange ending of 2017 and beginning of 2018 this
year. I had planned to be basking in the sun and the 80+ degree
WARMTH on a Caribbean cruise with two of my friends over the New
Year's holiday. However, at the very last minute, despite the
fact that I had already checked in online for the flight to
Florida, I already had stacks of short-sleeved tee-shirts, crop
pants and sandals lined up and ready to be packed, and I had even
attached the Holland America Westerdam luggage tags to my
luggage, it simply was not meant to be. I ended up having to
make a unexpected trip to the ER with what I hoped was a minor
ailment (which, in the end, it was ...), but it unfortunately won
me admission to the hospital for a few days, and the ER doctor
said, very definitely "you don't want to be on a cruise ship in
the middle of nowhere right now ...".

I told my friends to go ahead without me, but they
decided we should all rebook for a later date. The blessing is
that we all had trip cancellation insurance, and we are now
booked on a cruise in late April.

Sometimes things just don't go as planned, do they?
And I have to admit that most of last week, all I did was look
outside at the snow and ice and lament the fact that I was not on
that cruise! But, you know, it turned out that I was suffering
all week with a nasty cold and cough and probably wouldn't have
felt so great on that cruise. And then I heard that, due to the
weather, flights out of Florida to the Northeast were being
cancelled the day we were supposed to return home. So maybe
Someone was looking out for us after all!

I'd venture to say that almost every time in my life
when something didn't go the way I expected it to go, I've been
able to look back later and realize that it really was for the
best, because it turned out that there was a better plan I had
not thought of, or there was evidence that the thing I really
wanted would not have been in my best interest after all.
Someone really DOES look out for us, in big ways AND in small
ways, even though we hardly ever recognize it. What an amazing
God we have!